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Benzion Miller 13June2012 Yiddish Book Center

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Benzion Miller 13June2012 Yiddish Book Center

by
Yiddish Book Center (Emily)

Usage
Attribution 3.0Creative Commons Licenseby
Topics
Family history, stories about ancestors, Childhood, Jewish Identity, Yiddish language, Music, song, singing, Press, Radio, Moyshe Koussevitzky, Shmuel Tovsky, Hershl Fox, WEVD radio station, Bobever hasidism, Vishnitz hasidism, cantorial music, nigunim, khazones, Yiddish Book Center, National Yiddish Book Center, Wexler Oral History Project, nybc, ybc, Yiddish, Jewish culture,
Language
English, Yiddish
Benzion Miller, world-renowned Hassidic cantor and collector and composer of nigunim (wordless melodies), was interviewed by Hankus Netsky in Borough Park, New York on June 6, 2012. Parts of this interview are in Yiddish.

Benzion was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany. He was raised in a musical family - his father was also a cantor - in various neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York. He recalls listening to WEVD Yiddish radio with his parents and discusses his memories of the Brownsville area of Brooklyn in which he spent a significant part of his childhood.

Benzion also discusses the process of composing niggunim, including talking about the secular friends with whom he often collaborates as well as the role of improvisation in his work.

To learn more about the Wexler Oral History Project, visit: http://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/tell-your-story

To cite this interview: Benzion Miller Oral History Interview, interviewed by Hankus Netsky, Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, Borough Park, New York, June 6, 2012. Video recording, https://archive.org/details/BenzionMiller13june2012YiddishBookCenter ( [date accessed] )
Abstract
Benzion Miller, world-renowned Hasidic cantor and collector and composer of nigunim [wordless melodies], was interviewed by Hankus Netsky in Borough Park, New York on June 6, 2012. Benzion came from a family of cantors, including his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. His father, Aaron Miller, from a Galician (Bobover) family, composed many pieces that are sung today throughout the Hasidic world. Benzion and his family listened to all kinds of Jewish music on WEVD and he could pick up a song after hearing it once. Benzion does not have one favorite cantor; he likes the improvisational style that he learned from his father and demonstrates. He sings a prayer differently every time. He believes that "being at home" in the music allows one to improvise. He thinks that the singer must know who he is – he, for instance, would not sing Italian arias or risqué Yiddish songs. Benzion listens to all kinds of music but considers atonal music, rock-and-roll and rap to be "sound pollution." Benzion realizes that the interviewer speaks Yiddish and switches to that "juicier" language. His father was born in Oshpitsin [Auschwitz] and his mother in a shtetl called Limonov. His father lost his first wife and children in the Holocaust; he met Benzion's mother in a DP camp in Germany. They had seven children and came to the United States in 1949. They lived in Jewish neighborhoods in Brownsville, Crown Heights and Borough Park, Brooklyn; Benzion recalls all the Jewish-owned businesses and pushcarts, synagogues and mikvehs [ritual baths]. His father had a butcher shop and he also worked as a mohel [ritual circumciser] and cantor. His parents never talked about their suffering during the war, except for gently reminding their children of what they would have done to have something good to eat in the ghetto and the camps. Benzion talks about how things have changed in his world. Many now pray in the shtibls [small houses of prayer] rather than the synagogue. Benzion is the cantor at Beth El synagogue, where congregants are a unique combination of Modern Orthodox and Hasidic. He explains that he sought the Bobover rebbe's permission before accepting the job. Benzion looks forward to the Krakow festival every year and has performed there many times. As his family came from this part of Poland, he has visited his father's house and his great-grandmother's grave. You can still see the mark of the mezuzahs on the houses there. He received medals from the President of Poland and the mayor of Krakow. He feels that the antisemitism in Poland derived from jealousy of the Jews' remarkable accomplishments, exacerbated by the church. Benzion's father started composing and even formed and led a choir as a boy. He sings songs composed or sung by his father and other relatives. He and the interviewer talk about friends of Benzion's and various musical styles. He reflects on how new music tends to be popular for a short while and then disappear, while the old music lives on. He is very touched, listening to his five year old grandson learning the traditional music. Benzion talks about how his father composed while listening to the hum of fluorescent lights in his butcher shop; Benzion also works as a schoykhet [ritual slaughterer] and has composed during the process of killing an animal. He does not approve of turning Hasidic music into rock music or something else to sell records. He is organizing a concert with his sons and several well-known klezmer musicians to sing only authentic Hasidic music from the various sects. The interviewer tells Benzion that interviewing him has been like a dream fulfilled; Benzion responds with humor.
Addeddate
2013-11-12 21:03:14.998728
Citation
Benzion Miller Oral History Interview, interviewed by Hankus Netsky, Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, Borough Park, June 13, 2012. Video recording, [URL of interview] ( [date accessed] )
Color
color
Controlled-themes
Family histories | Childhood | Jewish Identity | Yiddish language | Music | Singing | Radio
Excerpts
1819, 1820, 1821, 1822, 2247, 2248, 2249, 2250, 2251, 2252, 2253, 2254, 2444
Identifier
BenzionMiller13june2012YiddishBookCenter
Interview-date
6/13/2012
Interview-location
Borough Park, New York
Misc-themes
Cantorial music
Narrator-birth-place
Munich, Germany
Narrator-birth-year
1946

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